EDITORIAL: Time for Tanzania to open a new chapter

Chadema’s Godbless Lema is the last high-profile opposition politician to come back home from political exile. His return on Wednesday offers a new opportunity for starting a new chapter in Tanzania and make it possible for people to conduct politics without fearing for their lives.

As Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe said at Mr Lema’s homecoming rally in Arusha, some Tanzanian businessmen are still in exile because their personal security and that of their assets have not yet been guaranteed.

Such security guarantees can only be effected through reforms. These reforms should be carried out to address the issue of too much vested power in one individual without adequate recourse to courts of law.

Reforms are painful, but they must be carried out if Tanzania, as a country, is to move to a higher level of socioeconomic development. It is highly encouraging that President Samia Suluhu Hassan has seen the need for both political and economic reforms and has promised to deliver them.

In her “public letter” published in the media on July 1, 2022, she categorically said Tanzania could not move out of the permanent sense of political, electoral and economic transition if sweeping reforms were not carried out.

Just having the Head of State appreciate the need for reforms is encouraging. This is because for reforms to take place and be effective, a conducive atmosphere must be created. Reforms that are forced down the people’s throats are always counterproductive in the end.

That is why we urge the ruling CCM and civil servants to support’s President Hassan’s zeal for reforms and work hard to make it a reality. They must realise that Tanzania has still a long way to go and this calls for concerted efforts to remove all hurdles to socioeconomic advancements.

This is a country that still has much to do to ensure, for example, that all children are provided with quality education and villages get reliable supply of water and clean and safe water.

This is the country that is still struggling to put in place the most basic infrastructure even in urban areas at a time when the world is mulling how to deploy artificial intelligence to boost economic productivity. Do we still have time to keep hounding one another out of the country for political reasons?